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Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, currently at risk of impeachment. (Source: EVARISTO SA/AFP/Getty Images).

In case you missed it, times are tough in Brazil – about as tough as they’ve been in decades. The economy of the country is in a nosedive, and the politics of the country appears headed that way as well.

Over the past couple weeks, Brazil’s political drama has involved details you can’t make up. Like the newfangled curse words revealed in wiretapped phone calls involving ex-president Lula da Silva, too naughty to print. Or the discovery in an executive’s kitchen of a spreadsheet of illegal payouts to politicians, complete with cutesy nicknames. Or the fact that one of the judges who attempted to effectively block Da Silva’s removal from the Cabinet is supermodel Gisele Bündchen’s sister.

The details are fun, but the stakes are high. Over the past few days, the Economist and the Washington Post came out with instructions for how President Dilma Rousseff should leave office. Meanwhile, back in Brazil, the rule of law is at real risk of crumbling, as the judiciary and the executive play a public game of soccer that may further polarize the country and leave dangerous precedents for Brazil to grapple with in generations to come.

For Brazilians on both sides of the political spectrum, these are weary times. Their feeds are full of pro- and anti- government supporters writing manifestos in ALL CAPS. The streets are frequently filling with protests, and the weak economy’s toll on daily lives is becoming all the more real. As the lurid details flush out and into the international press, Brazilians are looking for ways to laugh about a crisis situation. An old Brazilian saying captures the feeling: “Laugh to not cry.”

But there is one place that offers shelter from the storm for Brazilians during these turbulent times: the social media feed of Sensacionalista, a satire paper that could be called The Onion of Brazil. The Facebook page has more than 2 million likes, and as the political scandals multiply and surpass anything seen in a House of Cards script, Brazilians are sharing Sensacionalista’s fake news with gusto, as they welcome the pressure release.

Many of their satirical headlines are layered in cultural references non-Brazilians would struggle to catch. But we’ve translated some of their more translatable gems to give you an idea of Sensacionalista’s articles.

Part of what makes the page so wildly popular is its apparent ability to walk the line between the political parties, somehow avoiding falling to either impassioned side. Cissa Paranaguá, a 29-year-old photographer from Brasília and a fan of the page, says, “A few months ago I thought they were more leftist, and then I thought they were more on the right, and now it seems like they just offer up jokes from all sides.” She adds, “I swear I think they must have 2 teams working for them.” Sensacionalista representative Martha Mendonça notes, "Our principal objective is to make people laugh, but we believe that the critiques that we make in our headlines help Brazilians reflect on themselves."

Founded in 2009 by journalist Nelito Fernandes, Sensacionalista (Sensationalist) is now run by a team of just four people, Fernandes being one of them. According to Mendonça, due in no small part to their edgy coverage of the 2014 presidential election, the site has grown to 10 million unique visitors per month, and 20 million monthly pageviews. Given those numbers, Mendonça notes, "If we were a true online newspaper, we'd be the fourth biggest in Brazil." Plus, this week, the site will be publishing its first book.

But in these wild days in Brazil, even Sensacionalista’s satirical headlines sometimes pale in comparison with the real news. When the wealthy industry association of São Paulo offered to serve filet mignon to anti-government protesters, one Facebook commenter supplemented the news with a fake headline of his own: “Sensacionalista shuts down due to unfair competition with reality."